This begs the question as to whether the ASTM landing gear loads requirements are adequate. Do you think they are?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rvbuilder2002

If you mean to prevent a nose fork failure from ever happening in any single airplane in the fleet, probably.
That is why a reinforced fork was designed and incorporated.

Food for thought though.....

Does the outcome shown in THIS VIDEO indicate that the load requirements imposed by FAR 23 are inadequate?

Clearly, the Piper Warrior "wheel barrow" accident does not say that the Part 23 landing gear requirements were/are inadequate. It is surprising the nose gear didn't fail sooner, given the abuse the pilot subjected it to. And I'm sure Piper did not redesign the nose gear because of that accident.

I was just wondering if the ASTM standards are adequate, given the issues with the initial RV-12 NLG fork, and (IIRC) the additional work Van's did on the braked-roll condition and subsequent modifications to the main gear attach structure (SB 12-11-09).

Clearly, the Piper Warrior "wheel barrow" accident does not say that the Part 23 landing gear requirements were/are inadequate.

I agree.
My point is that regardless of what standard you design to, there will be situations where something can still be made to fail depending on how it is treated.
I don't mean to imply that a landing such as this caused the failure that is the subject of this forum thread.
As you know there are a lot of different ways things can fail. A single overload event as in the posted video, or progressively over time because of numerous events where the component was only slightly overloaded .

At the time that the new design nose gear fork was installed on the red prototype/demonstrator for flight test and long term durability testing, the original fork had well north of 1000 hrs. A lot of those hours were doing transition training so it was not because it was babied by a few highly experienced pilots.
It had no evidence of any cracking or developing fatigue failure.

__________________Any opinions expressed in this message are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.

Tom,
I'm with you on this. I took my wheel pants off and put on a couple of hubcaps. When I decide to go on a 400+ mile trip, I'll put them back on but for all the local stuff, those huge puppies are staying off. Some may disagree, but Im not seeing a lot of difference between hubcaps and wheels pants. There is no doubt the pressure recovery wheel pants are more efficient, but not as much as you would think. Especially for local stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomkk

I actually do all my local flying with the wheel fairings off just so I can do a better preflight. It lets me see the brake pads, tire condition, brake lines in addition to the nose wheel fork.

To tell the honest truth, I don't care about the speed with local flying, only when I take an extended trip. It only takes about 45 min to put them on.

I agree.
My point is that regardless of what standard you design to, there will be situations where something can still be made to fail depending on how it is treated.
I don't mean to imply that a landing such as this caused the failure that is the subject of this forum thread.
As you know there are a lot of different ways things can fail. A single overload event as in the posted video, or progressively over time because of numerous events where the component was only slightly overloaded .

At the time that the new design nose gear fork was installed on the red prototype/demonstrator for flight test and long term durability testing, the original fork had well north of 1000 hrs. A lot of those hours were doing transition training so it was not because it was babied by a few highly experienced pilots.
It had no evidence of any cracking or developing fatigue failure.

Scott, a failure is a failure. It should not have happened.

But it did and it is not appropriate to minimize it.

Like a crankshaft failure, it is unacceptable. The original struts should have been recalled and except for cost, would have been.

Sometimes it is pound foolish to be penny wise. That's what this is all about.

Scott also it could be a problem with the welding on only a few Weldments or quality control

Joe Dallas

Quote:

Originally Posted by rvbuilder2002

I agree.
My point is that regardless of what standard you design to, there will be situations where something can still be made to fail depending on how it is treated.
I don't mean to imply that a landing such as this caused the failure that is the subject of this forum thread.
As you know there are a lot of different ways things can fail. A single overload event as in the posted video, or progressively over time because of numerous events where the component was only slightly overloaded .

At the time that the new design nose gear fork was installed on the red prototype/demonstrator for flight test and long term durability testing, the original fork had well north of 1000 hrs. A lot of those hours were doing transition training so it was not because it was babied by a few highly experienced pilots.
It had no evidence of any cracking or developing fatigue failure.

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